With the best movie villains, you know how evil they are the moment you lay eyes on them. And that was exactly the case for Sylvester Stallone when he cast Dolph Lundgren for “Rocky IV.”
In fact he genuinely hated the guy he eventually cast to play Ivan Drago.
“He was like the real Terminator, and I go, ‘I hate this friggin’ guy,’” Stallone told Jimmy Fallon on “The Tonight Show” Friday. “He’s just too perfect, too good looking. And if I loathe him, I’m sure the world will. He’s not really, but he looks like something that’s a thousand years in the future. This is not a guy you see waiting on your table.”
Stallone explained how tough it was trying to find a man who could believably play Drago. Turns out 6-foot-5′ Swedish Adonises do not grow on trees.
“Let me see if I can relate to you … I wanted in ‘Rocky IV,’ I really wanted a big, horrible vicious guy, like a primitive, and I couldn’t find him,” Stallone said. “I was finding giant wrestlers and football players, and then all of the sudden, the doors open, smoke comes in, there’s light, there’s the proceeding hair line and shoulders this wide. Everything is perfect. Even his calves were coming through his closing. He was muscular.”
It’s all water under the bridge now though with Stallone and Lundgren. The two reunite as Rocky and Drago in “Creed II,” and Stallone is working on another new film with Lundgren that he hopes to direct called “The International.” And Stallone is still hanging on to the idea of yet another “Expendables” sequel as well.
Stallone’s “Rambo: Last Blood” opens in theaters Friday.
Watch the clip of Stallone on Fallon above.